The number of immune cells in and around kidney tumors, the amount of dead cancer tissue, and mutations to a tumor suppressor gene called PBRM1 form a biomarker signature that can predict — before treatment begins — how well patients with kidney cancer will respond to immunotherapy, according to new research directed by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. In reviews of 136 kidney tumor biopsies taken for previous studies, investigators found that patients who had three positive factors — presence of immune cells in and around tumors, known as tumor-infiltrating immune cells, absence ...

Studies of consciousness often run into a common conundrum of science—it’s hard to measure a system without the measurement affecting the system. Researchers assessing consciousness, for instance as volunteers receive anesthesia, typically use spoken commands to see if subjects can still respond, but that sound might keep them awake longer or wake them up sooner than normal. A new study not only validates a way to assess consciousness without external stimulation, it also finds that it may be more precise. “We want to measure when people make the transition from conscious to unconscious, and vice versa, but as soon as you ask someone to do something, which is the classic ...

A chemical analyst and expert in micro-extraction at The University of Toledo created a more reliable, robust and efficient way to monitor pesticide exposure and help protect the health and safety of agricultural workers, especially for emerging sectors like the cannabis industry. Dr. Emanuela Gionfriddo, an assistant professor of analytical chemistry, and Nipunika H. Godage, a Ph.D. candidate in UToledo’s Dr. Nina McClelland Laboratory for Water Chemistry and Environmental Analysis, published research in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry outlining their groundbreaking method that is able to detect 79 pesticide residues in human blood plasma ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Economically disadvantaged students face food scarcity, unreliable access to services and other stressors, which can have a huge impact on their mental health. In Broome and Tioga counties, more than 50% of children live in families characterized as low income. New federal funding will help to put more Binghamton University social work students in schools to provide the services that these students need to succeed. The U.S. Department of Education has awarded two 5-year awards, totalling $9.3 million, to Binghamton University Community Schools (BUCS) to ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — While new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease tend to receive the most public attention, many well-researched ways to care for people with dementia don’t involve medication. A new evaluation compared the cost-effectiveness of four non-drug interventions to the usual care received by people with dementia and found that the interventions not only resulted in a better quality of life, but also saved money. In a study published April 6 in Alzheimer's & Dementia: ...

The use of coal power is not decreasing fast enough. The Paris Agreement’s target of a maximum of 2 degrees of warming appear to be missed, and the world is moving towards a temperature increase of 2.5–3 degrees. At the same time it is feasible to avoid higher warming. This is shown by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology and Lund University, Sweden, in a new study. “More and more countries are promising that they will phase out coal from their energy systems, which is positive. But ...

Researchers with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History have discovered the first effective bacterial probiotic for treating and preventing stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), a mysterious ailment that has devastated Florida’s coral reefs since 2014 and is rapidly spreading throughout the Caribbean. The probiotic treatment, described in a paper published today in Communications Biology, provides an alternative to the use of the broad-spectrum antibiotic amoxicillin, which has so far been the only proven treatment for the disease but which runs the risk of promoting antibiotic-resistant bacteria. SCTLD ...

University of Otago researchers have discovered new ways to treat antibiotic-resistant strains of  tuberculosis (TB), opening the door to new approaches for tackling the disease that kills about 4,000 people a day. Led by PhD candidate Natalie Waller and Senior Author Dr Matthew McNeil, of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, researchers were able to identify antibiotics that could rapidly kill drug resistant strains of TB and when combined could stop drug resistance from occurring altogether. TB is a major global cause of infectious disease morbidity and mortality, second only to COVID-19 and is one of the hardest infections to treat. ...

Bottom Line: Pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) lesions were detected in a majority of healthy pancreata from deceased donors of diverse age and harbored features of pancreatic cancer. Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research Authors: Marina Pasca di Magliano, PhD, co-corresponding author of the study, a researcher at the Rogel Cancer Center, and a professor of surgery and of cell and developmental biology at Michigan Medicine at the University of Michigan Timothy Frankel, MD, co-corresponding author, a researcher at the Rogel Cancer Center, and an ...

The risk of developing cardiovascular disease is lower in people with obesity who have a genetic predisposition for high BMI than people with obesity influenced mainly by environmental factors such as lifestyle, researchers from Karolinska Institutet report in eClinicalMedicine.   There has been a global increase in the incidence of overweight and obesity over the past few years. Almost one third of the world’s population now lives with overweight or obesity.   “The figure is alarming since it is well-established that a high BMI in middle-age increases the risk of developing ...

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a potentially dangerous condition. During sleep, the throat muscles of people with OSA relax and block the airflow into the lungs, so that they repeatedly stop breathing. Common symptoms of OSA include restless sleep, loud snoring, daytime sleepiness, and prolonged headaches in the morning – highly debilitating for patients and their partners. OSA is currently underdiagnosed: it may occur in as much as 15 to 30% of men and 10 to 15% of women, or approximately 1bn adults worldwide, of whom an estimated 80% don’t know they have it. Major risk factors for OSA include middle or old age, being obese, smoking, ...

When any matter is divided into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually all you are left with—when it cannot be divided any further—is a particle. Currently, there are 12 different known elementary particles, which in turn are made up of quarks and leptons each of which come in six different flavors. These flavors are grouped into three generations—each with one charged and one neutral lepton—to form different particles, including the electron, muon, and tau neutrinos. In the Standard Model, the masses of the three generations of neutrinos are represented by a three-by-three ...

Researchers at Tufts University have successfully bulk-produced fat tissue in the lab that has a similar texture and make-up to fat tissue naturally occurring in animals. The results, described in a study published today in eLife, could be applied to the production of cultured meat grown entirely from cells, giving it a more realistic texture and flavor. Startup companies around the world are developing cultivated meat—cell-grown chicken, beef, pork, and fish. Most are in early stages of development, not ready for large-scale production and, with a ...

Analysis of official Ukraine health data reveals a perfect storm of rising infectious diseases cases and falling levels of childhood vaccination and case detection in the frontline eastern region of Kharkiv. Between January and September 2022, new cases of rubella were 23 times higher among children living in the Kharkiv region than average rates across Ukraine, while shigellosis (diarrhoeal disease) and viral meningitis incidence was around 6 times higher, and whooping cough 5 times greater. But registration of infectious disease cases halved in Kharkiv ...

Key points: This meta-analysis, which includes the most recent studies evaluating the link between air pollution and dementia, is the first to include studies based on active case ascertainment and to evaluate studies using a new, more powerful bias assessment tool. The findings support the public health importance of a proposal, currently under consideration by the Environmental Protection Agency, to strengthen regulations on PM2.5 Boston, MA—Exposure to fine particulate air pollutants (PM2.5) may increase the risk of developing dementia, according to a new meta-analysis from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “This is a big step in providing actionable ...

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution is linked to a heightened risk of dementia, even at levels below current US, UK and European air quality standards, finds research published by The BMJ. More limited data suggests that exposure to nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxide might also be a risk factor for dementia. Many uncertainties remain, so caution is needed when interpreting these findings, but the researchers say the results “strengthen the evidence that air pollutants are risk factors for dementia.” More than 57 million people worldwide are living with dementia and the global ...

Experts recommend reducing consumption of added (“free”) sugars to around six teaspoons a day and limiting sugar-sweetened drinks to less than one serving a week after a comprehensive evidence review published by The BMJ today.   They found significant harmful associations between sugar consumption and 45 outcomes, including asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, depression, some cancers and death.  It’s widely known that excessive sugar intake can have negative effects on health and this has prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) and others to suggest reducing consumption of free or added sugars ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – April 05, 2023) A report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS) provides strong evidence of the importance of a healthy lifestyle for adults who were treated for cancer as children. The study is the first to find that the specific primary causes of death in long term survivors are many of the same leading causes of death in the U.S. population, often occurring at younger than expected ages. It also found that adult survivors of childhood cancer experience four times the risk of late mortality as the general population, even 40 years after diagnosis. However, ...

Up to two-thirds of patients with Tourette syndrome (TS), a tic disorder characterized by sudden uncontrollable physical movements, also suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a psychiatric condition characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors. Unfortunately, many of these dual-diagnosis patients are resistant to conventional treatments such as medications or behavioral therapy. While deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been approved for compassionate use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for OCD, this promising procedure is under investigational use for ...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has struck a major blow to global markets for vital commodities – particularly grains like wheat and maize. Shortages and price increases are contributing to the food insecurity crisis in certain parts of the world, according to the United Nations, and to more general economic uncertainty. A new study led by Adam Rose, research professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and its Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergencies (CREATE), estimates that disruption to exports of grain commodities during a projected one-year period of the war will result in a $1.6 billion loss for the global economy. The study was recently ...

Intramuscular administration of tranexamic acid (TXA), a drug used to target severe bleeding after childbirth, is safe and quickly reaches therapeutic concentrations in pregnant women, according to a study involving researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). The findings, from the Woman-PharmacoTXA Phase 2 trial, highlight that intramuscular injection may be a potential alternative to current intravenous approaches, which are often unsuitable in home births or rural care settings. Oral TXA was also well-tolerated, however, on average, took around one hour to reach therapeutic ...

Scientists have developed new technology to help couples undergoing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) due to male fertility problems to increase their chances of success in having a baby. Approximately one in six people worldwide is affected by infertility, according to the World Health Organization, and one in every 22 children in Australia is born via assisted reproduction. With a 78% failure rate, each IVF cycle can be an emotional rollercoaster that often ends in heartbreak. “Male infertility plays a role in around 30% of cases, due to problems such as low sperm count, reduced motility ...

National University of Singapore (NUS) physicists have discovered a novel form of ferroelectricity in a single-element bismuth monolayer that can produce regular and reversible dipole moments for future applications of non-volatile memories and electronic sensors. Ferroelectricity refers to the phenomenon of certain materials exhibiting a spontaneous electric polarisation that can be reversed by applying an external electric field. Ferroelectric materials are characterised by a crystal structure that lacks a centre of ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. (April 6, 2023) – Immune cells that can “smell” the metabolites of a high-fat Western diet and may produce inflammation and ultimately heart disease as a result, just what our “longer” RNAs are doing in our bodies and the role of immune cells called neutrophils in both cancer and heart disease are some areas of pursuit of the first five scientists recruited to the new Immunology Center of Georgia at the Medical College of Georgia. The new IMMCG, codirected by Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholars Catherine “Lynn” Hedrick, PhD, and Klaus Ley, MD, who joined the MCG ...

The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) is hosting a free webinar, “Changes in Infant Emotion Regulation Following Maternal Treatment for Postpartum Depression” on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, at 2:00 pm EST. The presenter will be Ryan J. Van Lieshout, M.D., Ph.D., FRCPC.   Postpartum depression affects up to 1 in 5 mothers and is associated with elevated rates of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive problems in offspring. It may have particularly negative effects on infant emotion regulation - the ability to modify emotions ...